A Cup of Tea
by Hatchspeut
Summary: PRMF. Madison is interrupted in her morning tea.


DISCLAIMER: I do not own Power Rangers.

AUTHOR: I little something-something I wrote this morning. Hope you like it.

* * *

**A cup of tea**

The morning air was crisp when Madison stepped out on the porch with a steaming cup of tea in her hand and a book in the other. She sat down on the porch swing, happy that she had decided to put on her thickest sweater before leaving her room. Summer was definitely over.

The rest of her family was sleeping. The whole world was sleeping. Fog lingered on the field beyond the lawn, shielding her from the sight of the city. It was quiet. Not even the birds were awake yet. The sun had just begun to peer over the horizon. It would be many hours still before the day begun.

Sighing, Madison flipped her book open at the bookmark and removed the paper strip from the spread. She hadn't slept well at all. Her mind was blurry with thoughts.

Nick was Udonna's son. Koragg was Udonna's long lost husband Leanbow. And Leanbow was Nick's father.

Madison frowned. It was difficult to take it all in. She could only imagine how Nick must be feeling right now. He had looked so lost and vulnerable. Madison flinced at the memory. The look on Nick's face was what had haunted her all night. Udonna had tried to reach out and touch him, but Nick had pulled away like an injured horse. Before anyone else had the chance to get to him, Nick had run away.

No one had seen him since.

Daggeron had told a distressed Udonna to give Nick some space to process the new information and space was what they all had given him.

It had been difficult. Madison had unconciously reached for her phone so many times during the evening that Vida eventually took away her phone. Her twin had told her Nick would return when he was ready, pushing him would only make him pull away farther.

Madison knew her sister was right, of course, but it was still hard to sit around doing nothing but waiting. She cared for Nick – a lot – probably more than was healthy and she didn't want him to go around hurting on his own.

Taking a sip of her tea, Madison tried to focus on her book. It was one of her favorites – Pride and Predjudice - but this particular morning that didn't seem to matter. Her troubled mind made her thoughts wander away from the slightly chaotic family that was the Bennets, again and again.

Madison was ready to give up and throw away the book when her ears picked up on the soft sound of footsteps coming at her over the wet lawn. Madison looked up and her heart took a leap. It was Nick!

Madison blinked several times before she dared to believe it. Nick was coming towards her through the fog, his dark hair damp from the moist morning air. He had shoved his hands deep into his pockets to protect them from the cold. His whole appearance looked huddled, with shoulders drawn up to his ears and back bent slightly forward.

Had he been out walking all night?

Madison glanced at the road. There were no signs of a motorcycle anywhere and she would have heard if a taxi dropped him off. If he hadn't been walking all night, he had definitely been walking out here all the way from the city. A distance of eight miles, at the very least!

"I was hoping you were up," Nick said when he climbed the steps up to her on the porch. "Am I interrupting?"

He made a geature towards the book in her lap. Madison had forgotten all about Mr Darcy and Mr Bingley.

"We've been worried about you," she said as she put down the book next to her on the porch swing. "You look cold. Let me get a blanket for you, and maybe a cup nice hot tea."

Before Nick could protest, Madison had hurried inside. When she returned with the blanket and a second cup of tea, Nick had made himself comfortable on the porch swing.

"Thank you," he murmured, as she handed him the blanket. She waited for him to settle in before she gave him the tea. Then she sat down beside him and picked up her own cup from the porch floor.

For a long time they sat there quiet, Nick struggling to find something to say and Madison patiently waiting for him to find it.

At last, Nick parted his lips to talk.

"Udonna is my mom." The words were barely more than a whisper. "And Koragg is my dad."

Madison nodded slowly.

"I can't believe it either," she admitted. "Udonna had been among us for months now. I never thought . . . How do you feel about it?"

Nick shrugged his shoulders inside the blanket. He was as pale as the early morning light surrounding them. The cold had pinched his face, leaving a soft shade of pink to linger on his cheeks. Apart from the exhausted and slightly haunted look hon his face, Madison thought she had never seen him this handsome before. It made her heart ache of longing to touch him.

"I don't know. Confused, I guess." Nick drew an unsteady breath. "All my life I've been wondering whom my parents are, why they left me. Now I know."

Madison glanced down in her cup.

"It must be a small comfort at least to know that they didn't want to give you up, that you were taken from them. Udonna said she has been searching for you all these years and I'm sure Leanbow would have done the same if he hadn't been trapped in the underworld as Koragg."

Nick shrugged again.

"I suppose so."

He didn't sound convinced and Madison bit her lip like she always did when she was unsure about what to do.

"You know," she said some time later, "no one is forcing you to do anything. You don't have to accept them as your parents if you don't want to."

"But they _are_ my parents", Nick interrupted. "Whether I like it or not, I am this Bowen. The Light!"

So that was the sore spot, Madison thought to herself. She reached for his hand and gave it a light squeeze, trying not to gasp out loud when she felt how cold his fingers were.

"We don't have to call you Bowen, Nick. The Light-thing we can't do much about but we can still call you Nick, if that's you want. Nothing has too change. And the darkness, we'll fight it together. As a team. You, me, Vida, Chip and Xander. We're a team. Whether you are Nick or Bowen, you are still our Red Ranger. Our friend. And we'll be there for you, surely you know that."

Nick looked up. Madison, who had always shied away from making eyecontact with other people, found herself having no difficulties to meet Nick's emerald green gaze this morning. She saw loneliness fading away like the fog out on the field would when the sun rose higher, she saw pain and fear as old as Nick himself, but she also saw something new growing. Something light and warm. Faith.

Nick's fingers moved inside her palm. Searching, spreading, until they broke free and and could interlace with her own. Madison looked down on their hands. Her heart pounding so fast. Nick was looking at them too.

"Thank you, Maddy," he whispered, "for being here for me."

Madison smiled. A warm feeling spreading through her body.

"I will always be here for you, Nick. Always."

* * *

Please leave a comment below to let me know what you think! =)


End file.
